Only Myself As Well
by PuddleToes
Summary: Voldemort gets his revenge on the Quibbler by killing off it's editor. The Death Eaters find Luna and take her to their Lord... He wants to break her for further revenge against the Order. Can he, or is Luna much more unbreakable than everyone thinks? (Ra
1. The Only

A/N: I've taken a break from my other story, **Colours of Light**, to bring this story to life. This started picking at my brain a day or so ago, the words seem to be flowing from my fingers at the moment, so I am writing them out.

Disclaimer: Not mine... Never will be. I have to start accepting that.

Chapter One

I have always known that I am rather different from everyone else. Ever since I was a small child, my father and mother had both instilled in me the knowledge of the importance of being myself. My mother was by far the most influential person on my journey through life. I can still sense her presence in me and always strive to let the light that she has shone onto others shine once again through me, even though she has moved on from here.

She was different. I am different. My father was an encouraging source to her, as he is to me. Never wanting to stifle my creative and unique gifts, as a child they allowed me to dress and act as I pleased, as long as it was never harmful to others, or to myself. I was raised with a firm guidance yet with a lenient hand to my differences.

I know that people don't really like me; they never _really_ took a liking to me anyway. I think they are afraid of my differences, though they seem reluctantly tolerant of my behaviours. I like being different. It is my lifeblood, my passion. Take away the right for a person to be who they really are and you take away their soul. Everyone is different, some people group together and on the whole it may seem like they are only imitating each other for friendship sake, but they are really only trying to be themselves with others they can relate to.

I have no one to relate to really. My father is now the most accepting of me.

No, it goes further than that. At the moment I can't find the words to describe it, but I am sure I will come back to the matter later.

My father is the editor of The Quibbler. He's been running this magazine since before I was born, and the stories he has found have been my bedtime stories growing up. I never doubt the tales he tells me are true, if someone sees a crumple-horned snorkack that must mean that they exist. Sometimes you just have to accept someone's word for what it is.

The best issue of The Quibbler we've ever sold was the one last year with the article about Harry Potter telling everyone what really happened at the Triwizard Tournament.

That has been reprinted four times already in the past couple of years, and I suppose Dad will want to reprint it again soon, people still talk about it, "Did you get a copy yet?" "No, I do hope the Quibbler will have another issue with it soon."

Often I am kept busy in the summer holidays and at Christmas time by helping Dad with the magazine. Organizing articles, updating the subscriber list and so forth. When I return home from school, it's usually up to me to cook meals for us. That's fine with me; I rather enjoy inventing new dishes for Dad to test out. Of course there have been a few times where he's had to suddenly excuse himself from the table to run to the toilet, but he always seemed to return in good enough spirits.

Today is the seventeenth day of August; it's very warm and humid outside. I'm lying on my stomach on the front porch, my chin on my hands between the bottom of the porch railing and the floorboards, watching the plants grow. Many people don't realise they would be able to see plants growing if they watched them very carefully. I love to see the petals slowly emerge from hiding in the centre of the flowers, or the leaves unfurl and spring to life with a gentle confidence.

I reach my fingers over the side of the porch and lovingly brush them over the bright orange and brown marigold heads. I love the smell of blooming marigolds. I think this is another trait I've inherited from my mother; she loved planting marigolds all over our yard, in the gardens, potted on the porch, potted inside the house. That was something else I really admired about her, she never wanted to kill the plants by picking them and putting them in vases. I like to do this as well, and besides, it's far more rewarding to watch them grow and come to life than it is to watch them die.

As I lay and enjoy the flowers and the sweet smell of the trees I watch a fat and fuzzy bumblebee drift lazily over the marigolds and regard my fingers before continuing his busy work.

"_Good time for a kip."_ I think sleepily and my eyelids start to feel quite leaden. I drift off in the subdued sunlight, the sound of cicadas buzzing as my lullaby.

------------------

"Luna! Luna, where are you?"

I start at the sound of Dad's voice and accidentally bump my head on the lower rail. Rubbing my head as I sit up I notice how much cooler it's gotten. The cicadas are quiet now and the stars are starting to wink at me, one by one from their lofty and rapidly dimming perches.

"Luna!"

"I'm out here Dad!"

He barrels through the door.

"I've been searching high and low for you! I've just got an owl from a man in Barking and he says he's seen a talking horklump! He says he's got at least three other witnesses who can back him up!"

I grin up at him and his excitement.

"That's great Dad! When are we going to print it?"

"As soon as we can, duckie! As soon as we can! First though, what do you want for supper?"

"Oh, I don't know, I suppose I could put something together for us, if you want to get started on that article."

"Thanks sweetheart." He says before tugging me in for a hug and a kiss on my forehead and dodging to the rooms at the back of our house, which work as his office. Our house doesn't look very big from the outside, but the inside is quite expansive due to the miracle of magic.

That's the last time I see Dad.

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A/N: How's that for a first chapter? Sorry if it's short, I'm still getting my "writers legs" and trying to gauge the amount I have to write on Word and on Notepad to get a substantial chapter on This bunny is still hopping rampantly in my head, so no worries about writers block for a little while at least. Please review, your feedback is so important to me. It propels me forward.


	2. Only Me

A/N: I'm back. Here's chapter 2! I hope it's ok.

Disclaimer: Stares down the lawyers who are at the ready to pounce on any diclaiminglymentedness she might forget. They still aren't mine.

Chapter Two

I go back into the house and pick up my wand, which is sitting where I left it on a front hall table. It warms in my hand almost immediately.

"I know, I know, don't worry I'll get to use you again soon." I murmur softly to it.

Tucking it behind my ear, I stroll over to the kitchen. Our kitchen is what you could call homey. I suppose the same could be said for the rest of our house as well, there are odds and ends strewn about, things on tables, old issues of The Quibbler on chairs, empty butterbeer bottles in boxes near the kitchen door, pots and pans hang from the ceiling and there are mason jars filled with a variety of objects. Some have cooking utensils, another holds spare knuts, and a few have soil with herbs growing out of them.

I reached up to pull one of the jars off of a shelf by the window over the sink and watched the lemon thyme growing from it for a moment.

"_I should make fish."_ I think and pluck a few sprigs from the plant.

A booming sound rattles the whole house and I drop the mason jar out of surprise. I look up at the corners of the ceiling where there are small trails of dust floating down, jarred out of their comfortable places by the shaking. They look pretty in the fading sunset, and it makes me feel warm. I step around the doorframe to look for Dad, but the hallway is just dark.

"Go see if there's anyone else around who might've heard the noise." I hear someone say. It doesn't sound like a very nice person's voice. It is a man, and his voice is smooth but cold. Very cold, like thin pond ice. I duck back into the kitchen, but who ever was sent out to find more people had already set their eyes on my form.

"Well, well, who do we have here?" I hear him mock me; his large, rather bulky form swaggers over to me. I look up at him as he gets closer to me, I can smell the drink wafting over to me on his breath as he speaks.

"Are you all alone here, poppit?" His teeth are very white and very straight, it amazes me that they could be that white. He mistakes my observing silence for me being frozen with fear. He takes this moment to peer around the house, through the window and back at me.

I take this moment to ponder why on earth I smelled lemon at a time like this. I glance down at my hands, which are in loose fists and I remember that I have the lemon thyme in my fingers. I suppose I must have pulled my fingers into tighter fists than I had thought at some point.

Well, that solves that mystery.

I look back to the man in my kitchen.

"Can I help you?" I ask politely, being surprised doesn't excuse bad manners. He guffaws at this and calls to his friend who is at present searching the rooms in the other parts of the house.

"Lucius! I think we've searched thoroughly enough, but come look what I've found!" I don't like the look on this man's face. There's something... unsettling about him.

"We have to be sure that there's no one else around, Avery." The friend of the Avery man said before rounding the corner into the kitchen.

"Ah, Miss Lovegood, it is a delight to see you, as always."

I recognise this man as Lucius Malfoy, he had once tried to arrange a relationship between his son, Draco and myself. Our families were a couple of the remaining pure blood lines in the United Kingdom, I suppose he wanted to keep the line going, although the Malfoys were distant cousins through marriage to our family.

I give him a small smile, and look down at the lemon thyme in my hand.

"I'm going to make some fish for supper, do you think lemon thyme would go best with it, or would dill be better?" I glance over to a different mason jar on the windowsill with tall sprigs of dill growing from it.

"Dad always likes lemon with fish better. I'd use this."

Avery looks over to Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Malfoy shakes his head slightly at him as I carefully put the now crushed lemon thyme in my pocket.

"You're going to be coming with us, Luna. Your father has had an unfortunate, _accident_." Mr. Malfoy tells me, in a tone that suggests there will be no arguing with him on the matter.

I sigh, look down at my toes and rub them on the floor a little; one of my big toes cracks and Mr. Malfoy winces at the sound.

"I know there's been an accident." I whisper.

"Alright then, come on now Miss Lovegood, be a good girl and don't give us any trouble." He reaches to grab my arm. I lift up my hands to tuck my hair behind my ears and grabbing my wand I quickly flick it at him.

"Stupify!" I say calmly. In that split second of watching Mr. Malfoy collapse on the ground I look to Avery, knowing that using my wand was no good, but at the same time figuring I had to do something to defend myself. I see the curses coming at me, but I don't move.

"Expelliarmus! Stupify!"

For a while there was nothing...

A/N: Sorry this is shorter than the last, I had to keep you readers wanting more, lol! Thanks for reading, there will be much more to come; I've got great plans for this story. Unless it decides to up and change on me, of course. Please R&R and let me know who's out there reading my story/ies.

Ninde Annare: Thank you so much for all of your excellent reviews! I meant what I said in the first chapter, reviews fuel my writing, I wasn't going to write anymore last night or today, but after I got all your reviews, I got a second wind to write more! Thanks, I look so forward to hearing more of what you think of my story.


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